1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a drawing processing system such as a CAD (computer-aided design) system for processing a drawing represented in a drawing data form, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for referring to related information for retrieving information related to the drawing and stored in a data base from the data base and for entering the same into the drawing so as to refer the information related to the drawing in the drawing processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a plant drawing, such as a piping and instrument diagram; process flow diagram; and piping diagram of the plant, is a logical drawing drawn by use of lines indicating pipelines, symbols indicating instruments, and characters indicating applications and management numbers.
In recent years, in the industrial fields which have large-scale plants of petroleum, petrochemistry and nuclear power generation and in which safety is required, a large number of plants and a large number of instruments are used. Therefore, the number of drawings used for displaying the structures thereof, the amount of measurement data related to the drawings and the amount of instrument specification data become extremely large. As a result, there occurs a possibility that time required for detecting the abnormal state of the plant becomes long and the reliability thereof is lowered.
Therefore, under this condition, it is necessary to reduce the time required for detecting the abnormal state of the plant and enhance the reliability thereof. For this purpose, it is desired to represent the drawing data in an electronic data form by use of the CAD system, combine the drawing data with related data such as measurement data or instrument specification data which is conventionally available, and manage them in a united form in order to reduce the time required for detecting the abnormal state of the plant and enhance the reliability thereof.
The plant drawing, such as a piping and instrument diagram; process flow diagram; and piping diagram of the plant encoded by use of lines, symbols, and characters, is converted into pattern data or CAD data by forming and editing the same by the CAD system. Conventionally, a data base, in which information such as measurement data or instrument specification data related to the piping and plant instrument is stored, is provided for the plant. In most cases, the above information must be substantially closely related to the plant drawing. Specifically, such information contains measurement information of pressure, temperature and the like and instrument specification information of the pipe diameter, pipe length and the like of the pipeline.
Conventionally, when measurement data, instrument specification data and the like are retrieved in connection with the drawing represented in a CAD data form, a computer system capable of effecting the multiwindow process for simultaneously opening windows of a plurality of different applications or a so-called multiwindow system is used to effect the following processes.
That is, the drawing window of the CAD system representing the drawing of CAD data and the information retrieving window of the data base system for retrieving numerical data of measurement data and character data of the instrument specification are simultaneously opened. By this operation, information related to the drawing can be retrieved in the information retrieving window with the drawing of CAD data displayed in the drawing window.
A concrete example of the display plane in the operation of retrieving drawing related information in the above-described conventional system is schematically shown in FIGS. 1 to 5.
In order to retrieve the measurement data and instrument specification data related to the drawing, a retrieval item window W2 for selecting the retrieval item is opened with a drawing window W1 of the CAD system opened as shown in FIG. 1. The retrieval items such as temperature, flow rate, pressure and pipe diameter are displayed in the retrieval item window W2.
Suppose now that the operator operates an instruction input device such as a mouse to select and specify the flow rate and pipe diameter from the retrieval items of the retrieval item window W2 as shown in FIG. 2, for example.
Further, if the operator operates the mouse to select and specify a drawing element such as a pipeline or plant instrument as indicated by "x" in FIG. 3, the retrieval item specified in the retrieval item window W2 for the specified drawing element or object pattern, that is, the flow rate and pipe diameter are used as retrieval keys to retrieve the measurement data and instrument specification data from the data base ("x" simply indicates the specified position of the drawing element by the mouse cursor or the like and such a mark is not always displayed on the pattern of the image plane).
If the retrieval result can be obtained by the above retrieving operation, a retrieval result window W3 is further opened as shown in FIG. 4, and the values of the flow rate and pipe diameter for the object pattern (the pipe indicated by "x" in FIG. 3) are displayed as "FLOW RATE=100" and "PIPE DIAMETER=50", for example, in the retrieval result window W3.
When a hard copy of the image plane on which the drawing is displayed is used as an output of the retrieval result and if the retrieval item window W2 and retrieval result window W3 are output on the hard copy of the image plane of the drawing window W2, the image becomes difficult to clearly observe. Therefore, in such a case, the operator is required to set the retrieval keys to correspond to the retrieval results in position near the object pattern of the drawing window W1, manually input characters of "FLOW RATE=100" and "PIPE DIAMETER=50", clear the retrieval item window W2 and retrieval result window W3 from the image plane, and then output the hard copy.
In the above example, the retrieval window is constructed by the two windows, that is, the retrieval item window W2 and the retrieval result window W3.
However, the retrieving/entering operation of drawing related information in the above conventional system has the following problems.
(1) Overlapping of Windows
For example, when the retrieval item window W2 and retrieval result window W3 are displayed on the drawing window W1 of the CAD on the image plane as shown in FIG. 4, part of the drawing displayed on the drawing window W1 is covered with the retrieval result window W3 and cannot be observed. In FIG. 4, a specified portion of the object pattern is covered with the retrieval result window W3 and cannot be observed. In such a case, it is only required to change the display position of the retrieval result window W3, but a complicated operation must be effected to change the display position of the window and it is sometimes impossible to change the display position of the window due to the limitation of the physical positional relation.
(2) Retrieving Object Pattern
The operator who has effected the retrieval operation of drawing related information can easily determine the pipe or instrument corresponding to the retrieving object pattern, but it is sometimes difficult for the third party to determine the same. Particularly, when the hard copy of the image plane is utilized as the output of the retrieval result, the retrieval key and the retrieval result are set to correspond to each other and characters are written on the image plane of the drawing window W1 as shown in FIG. 5. At this time, when the retrieval item window W2 or retrieval result window W3 is displayed on or near the object pattern, the characters must be input into an adequate position after the retrieval item window or retrieval result window is moved. Further, after this, the retrieval item window W2 and retrieval result window W3 are cleared from the image plane and then the hard copy of the image plane is obtained. In this case, the operation is extremely troublesome.
(3) Possibility of Erroneous Input
The operator creates the retrieval result on the drawing window W1 as a character string to reflect the retrieval result on the hard copy of the drawing, but at this time, there occurs a possibility that the retrieval result is erroneously input.